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This Sunday, just four months after a failed coup, Benin<\/a> heads to the polls for a presidential election that feels more like a coronation than a contest.<\/p>\n Patrice Talon, the businessman turned politician who has been president since 2016, is ineligible to run again after serving two five-year terms.<\/p>\n The winner of Sunday\u2019s election will have the chance to run for two seven-year terms instead, after a controversial constitutional amendment elongated presidential tenures.<\/p>\n Romuald Wadagni, the country\u2019s finance minister who emerged as the ruling coalition\u2019s candidate without any primaries, is overwhelmingly the favourite to win this weekend.<\/p>\n According to the investigative newsletter Africa Confidential, the path to a Wadagni win was cleared with ruthless efficiency as other possible contenders<\/a> were sidelined, placated or removed.<\/p>\n Wadagni, who speaks English fluently after years as a technocrat in the US, is seen as the architect of Benin\u2019s recent fiscal stability in the Talon era. He has vowed to implement free schooling and more jobs, appealing promises in a country where young people account for more than half of the population.<\/p>\n If the 49-year-old emerges as the winner, he will be one of the youngest leaders on a continent where the average presidential age is 65. West and central Africa<\/a> is home to two of the world\u2019s longest-serving leaders in Cameroon\u2019s 93-year-old Paul Biya and <\/strong>Equatorial Guinea\u2019s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, 83.<\/p>\n A peaceful democratic transition after the failed coup also presents Benin an opportunity to buck another regional trend: at least three of its neighbours are ruled by juntas. But Talon\u2019s critics say he is also a strongman in a similar mould and have accused him of crushing dissent despite noticeable development in the country.<\/p>\n Discontent trickled down to some troops and coalesced into December\u2019s attempted military takeover. But many believe the soldiers also acted because of a rise in jihadist attacks at its borders with Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria.<\/p>\n Several newspapers have been closed indefinitely by authorities after publishing information critical of the government. Hugues Sossoukp\u00e8, a journalist who had been in exile in Togo since 2021, was arrested on Ivorian soil by Beninese agents last July. He remains in Ouidah prison, tagged as a \u201cdangerous cyberactivist who advocates terrorism\u201d.<\/p>\n